Do governments ever get anything right? Despite all the trumpeting from on high about how the new SAREB ‘Bad Bank’ will save Spain and relieve the banks of toxic debts, the whole operation has stalled, well not exactly stalled but more failed to start.
Despite having the first €37bn in assets transferred from only FOUR troubled banks, nobody knows what to do with it! The ‘bad bank’ has set massive discounts on new and re-sale properties, land and developments, fully and part finished but don’t know how to sell them!
The fact that they probably spent most time in siesta or fiesta whilst the bank was being set up may account for the fact that cyber squatters nipped in and bagged all the .com and .eu SAREB web domains and have offered to sell them for a huge sum. As it is, they settled for .org in December.
Now, SAREB is tasked with disposing of property and land up to limit of 90 billion euros at any one time, no financial institution in Europe can handle this level of responsibility, and SAREB only has two full time staff, (the president and the financial director) plus an independent ‘advisor’ so it is difficult to imagine how on earth this entity can function at all.
The head office situated on the 6th floor of a Madrid office block was chosen by the president because he liked the brightness of the facility and its location, as it is located very close to the headquarters of the FROB and the Ministry of Economy.
There is no plaque on the building, only a small sign on a table inside the building indicating the Banks presence and there is just one huge open space serving as a massive open plan office.
So there you have it – the great plan to save the economy is just a huge empty open space with billions of euros of toxic assets on its books, with no idea how to sell them and no staff to run it, anyway.
Woodbug